


Little Courtesies

by smollander



Category: FFXIV, Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, Gen, I Ship It, I'm not even sure what this is, Other, What Was I Thinking, Why Did I Write This?, also uhh if that's not something you're interested in have a nice day, but also i don't even know if there will be kissing, just why, you ever rethink whole cutscene convos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2020-11-28 15:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20968568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smollander/pseuds/smollander
Summary: Sometimes it's the little courtesies you afford one another that help bridge the gap. Hi, I had this idea of expanding all the conversations with Ardbert around the idea that part of him regaining hope comes from just being treated like a person again. Cheers.





	1. hello

**Author's Note:**

> First up, the WoL in this is a WoL iteration of an RP character. There's some major differences that are totally irrelevant to any of this. 90% of this idea is 'man, I wish there was more of Ardbert and the WoD commiserating on how difficult it is to even be repping for Hydaelyn sometimes'. Some of these will definitely be rewrites of cutscenes. Others I'm just going to make up.

That first ‘morning’ on Norvrandt, Honoura poked her head out from under the bed covers, looked around, and whispered a “hello” to the presumed empty room. Ever since La Noscea, since Titan, life had thrown all kinds of new experiences at her. Wars, primals, dragons, _ politicians _, an apocalypse now? Or to be.

“Ardbert?” Silence. No response.

Presently, the biggest problem of this moment was there might or might not be a ghost in the room. If there was, what to do about it. Not that shades were unheard of; she’d certainly seen them before. Hells, he wasn’t even the creepiest looking shade out there. Ardbert was different. For one he _ seemed _ … lucid. She could talk to him, much to their surprise. He was aware of things. She hadn’t met a shade both untethered and capable of speech since Nidhogg, and _ that _had involved possession. Ardbert could wander where he liked it seemed -- and had been since well before her arrival. 

He was also visible. Sometimes. But not all the time. He’d left rather abruptly after sounding very resolved to watch her actions. 

_ This world has had its fill of heroes, _ he said. Hadn’t even stayed long enough for her to explain she hadn’t a choice to be here. Since then, she had not seen him, but that did not mean he was not _ there _. After a quarter bell of hmming and hesitating, she decided hells with it and threw back the covers. “Right, I’m getting up then, you’ve had fair warning. No peeking,” she announced, possibly to only air.

It wasn’t her first time rooming with men. If he wasn’t going to respond it was on him if he got embarrassed. Someone couldn’t lay in bed forever in her smallclothes. And so it went at first; wake up, give him fair warning, get up and on with what she counted as a sun. 

The bells were hard to mark when shadows did not lengthen or warp quite how they used to. _ Sometimes _ the Light seemed to dim (maybe that was during the true night). Otherwise, there was nothing out in the field to mark time. Was it days or weeks since arrival? Since reuniting with each of the twins? She gave up counting at some point -- until one night. The first night.

“So it’s your lot’s turn to be the Warrior of Darkness is it? It’s funny how things work out.” It wasn’t much of a hello. But it was a place to start.

“You _ were _watching.” It’s not a chastisement, merely a statement of fact. Or it might have been, if her back wasn’t as straight and stiff as a fire poker and her arms crossed defensively. Maybe if her eyebrows didn’t point so strongly into a vee shape, Ardbert could have shrugged her off. Instead he felt a nagging need to rebuff, to explain himself.

“Well, I _ did _warn you,” he replied, squaring his shoulders to perhaps gain an ilm in height previously lost to slouching,”So yes. I followed you to Eulmore and then on to Amh Araeng. I was there when you slew the Lightwarden.”

“And now you’re back to barging in,” She frowned up at him, a full five fulm of disapproval for the moment.

“Aye, _ I know! _ ” He made a point to look down at her; it clearly was a sore spot,”In case you’ve forgotten, you’re the only one who can **see** me.” Or hear him. Gods knew he’d tried.”If we had one of our little chats in public, people might start thinking you’ve lost your wits.”

“Not the point. It's _ courtesy _ . This is _ my space _ , and I’m.” She uncrossed her hands but wasn’t sure what to do with them. They remained in mid-air, mid-gesture. Somehow, she sensed merely flailing her hands did not convey the authority she wanted. Nevermind the fact she was trying to gain authority over a _ dead man. _

“So it _ wouldn’t _ trouble you if the rest thought you’d gone mad.”

"Look, you want to follow me around like a spectral hound until the hooded fellow holds up his end? Fine.” Honoura pointed to the floor, leaning in. “But you come in here you warn me."

"Shall I rattle some chains for you?" he remarked. He might have been dead a century, but he still knew how to make a joke. Wonderful.

"Just. Say hello or something. Knock on the do-"

"I _ pass through _the door." He crossed his arms, waiting.

"Then bloody say knock-knock." Her eyes narrowed; this was maybe a petty argument to have. What did it win -- he was a shade, she was alive. If she wished it she could ignore him forever.

“Fine,"he sulked, conceding the point. Unhappy but satisfied, she took that as a good time to turn her back to him and look out the window. He could see himself, whenever that would be.

"Those white-haired twins who were with you." Except he didn't seem to be going anywhere.

“What of them?”

“I remember them from our battle in the Source.”

"I imagine they'd remember you too if they could see you." she scoffed.

That arrow stung -- maybe it was fair. They started off on the wrong foot all the way back then. “Are they your friends then? Through thick and thin?”

She didn't have a pithy response ready for him. Unknowingly, he touched on a subject she often debated with herself. Typically, when she was alone.

Ardbert took the silence for a yes. “Then I suggest you keep them close. It’s when you charge ahead trying to save someone that you end up losing those you love.”

“You can stop the lecture now,” she said, finding her voice again.

“Not that you need telling. I’ll bet you’ve lost plenty--”

_ You've not a clue. _ “Could you _ please-” _

“But I wonder what will it cost you this time?”

Honoura spun around to glare at him. If it had any effect, he didn't let it slow. Ardbert was caught up in his own remorse at this point. Having an ear, even an unwilling one, had opened the floodgates. Prodding at her reopened old scars of his own.

“Get numb to it all over the years. The lost comrades, the broken promises, the abandoned principles -- just more nagging problems to ignore.” 

He was interrupted when a boot sailed through his midsection, and gaped in surprise at the angry scowl its owner wore. 

“Chalk this up as another mistake,”she snapped, prying off her gloves and her belt to toss those next. None of the rest passed through Ardbert, but she’d gotten what she wanted out of him. He’d shut up.

“Did you just throw a _ shoe _ at me?!”

“I could throw the other one if you like!” To prove it, she started to pry the other off.

Ardbert stared at her, astounded. This. This was the hero of the Source. A slip of a half-grown woman whose moods only shifted from ‘cool silence’ or ‘spitting mad’.

“Do what you want, just promise you’ll announce yourself whenever you walk in here. I'm going to bed. You're welcome to stand and brood." To make her point, she climbed into bed, fully clothed and facing the wall. 

He was not there in the morning.


	2. good morning

The water jostled her around, pitching and pushing. She heard the ocean in her ears. Was she back in the Ruby Sea again? Honoura used to spend hours drifting there underwater, or sitting atop the bubble which housed Tamamizu. It was a peaceful, weightless nothing. Nothing to do but watch the light filter through the water. 

Everything in the Far East hurt so much, even now. Yanxia still smelled of blood, gunpowder, and steel to her. The Enclave stood on old bones. The sea washed all of that away; no wars, no gods, no Steppes title, no nothing. 

“Wake up! Wake up, damn you!” 

The words roused her -- the lack of a sting when she opened her eyes confirmed this wasn't the Ruby Sea. Then she remembered: First. Il Mheg. The lake. A crown. The details got fuzzy after that. Ardbert, floating there, shouting at her, was crystal clear.

“Oh, you’re alive! Thank the gods. I don’t know how you learned how to breathe underwater but it’s good you can,” was she mishearing or was that relief? Honoura furrowed her brow at him; she supposed he had cause. There would be no one to talk to again if she had drowned. Even poor company was better than none at all.

“Good morning to you too.” The joke was about the only thing dry at present. 

“Ha ha,” Ardbert deadpanned, then took a more advisory tone,”First rule of dealing with the Fuath is, you do _ not _ deal with the Fuath.” He looked as disapproving as he sounded when her reply was a murmured,”Mine _ apologies _ for my ignorance-” 

“It’s_ said _ that they are born from the souls of the drowned. Were it not for your little trick, you’d have joined them.” Ardbert finished, and simply looked at her.

The memory trickled back in -- a roar of waves, and further back, words.

> _ Why don’t we just make her one of us? Yesss! One of us! _
> 
> _ What a fine idea! Why ever didn’t I think of that!? You may have the crown… but in exchange, we will have you! _

Honoura stared at him quietly, and that resolved look seemed to shift. Or maybe with her hair floating in her face she only seemed more fragile. Lost.

“Oh.” The word escaped and was stifled quickly. Hugging herself tightly, she sank a little bit lower before bobbing up again. Ardbert let the silence linger, to give a little time.

“Aye.” He said.

“What’s all this, anyroad?”

The ruins lay half-buried in silt at the bottom of the lake, well covered with layers of plant growth. The architecture resembled the fae king’s prison above their heads. Graceful arches hewn from stone, stained glass windows still intact in what seemed a chapel. A few had broken over the years, and the fragments littered the muddy street like jewels. There were no signs of any residents save the fish swimming amongst the weeds. A drowned city, and they bobbed in the middle of an abandoned thoroughfare.

“That’s the royal capital of the kingdom of Voeburt down there. It’s seen better days." Ardbert smiled sadly, pointing to a lamp post, low in the mud with the glass broken out. “It always froze over in winter, being up in the mountains. So we’d-" 

"Ishgard." 

"Huh?"

“Sorry. Just got reminded of somewhere familiar.” Even the architecture carried an air of nostalgia to it. If you dug back the mud and scrubbed the walls, Honoura could almost mistake one of the more intricately decorated buildings for a house along The Last Vigil. A place full of refuge and heartbreak.

Ardbert’s storytelling abruptly ended at that. “All dead and buried now. Unlike your Ishgard. Them and anyone else who might remember.” Bitterness clung to every word at that admittance, because he _ remembered _, he had been there. Then he had been left to watch everything decay. “Everything we did… everything we gave… what was it for?”

There were a dozen different answers Honoura felt she’d heard to a question like that. It was always something like for a people or a country or an ideal, and you were supposed to cling to that. Sacrifice mattered, it really did. The cost would equal the gain.

But none of those answers felt good enough when she saw people buried alive under a bridge. Or finding Wilred face down in Urth’s Fount with a knife in his back. Dead soldiers roped into a war because Ilberd’s desperate plan _ actually worked _. How could it feel good enough here, a kingdom of creatures born from the lost?

“I don’t know, honest.” Maybe that wasn’t the answer he wanted; it certainly didn’t make him look comforted. Ducking her head, she hesitated, and added,”Sorry.”

“Well,” he said,”I wond--I _ hope _ you’ll have a better answer than this when all’s said and done.”

_ Suppose that makes two of us, _ she wordlessly made her way to the surface.

“Here is your crown, _ Your Majesty, _” Alisaie shoved the relic into her hands when she resurfaced, lungs till full of lake water and squinting at the too-bright sky. Her hands shaking, Honoura took that relic and set it on her head, glaring. She retched up on the girl’s shoes as her first royal proclamation.

“You’re as willful as those pixies,” his voice echoed, hanging in the air.

From then on she knew he was there. Not always where. But he was about -- it was a constant nagging feeling. The kind where you can just spy something out of the corner of your eye, but miss it completely when you stared straight on. She wondered if he was in earshot when Seto said his name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It will probably forever amuse me that Ardbert's response to the WoL vacillates from "This world has had its fill of heroes" to "First rule of dealing with the Fuath, don't make deals with the Fuath".


	3. set the table

Honoura looked from the note to the table. Note. Table. Note. Table. She’d already worried a dent into the paper rubbing it between her thumb and hand. She certainly memorized what it said.

> _ I hope the past few days have not been overly taxing. Pray take your rest and recover. _

In truth, this looked enough for at least two people, maybe three. A peace offering as well as a gift. Certainly the more filling apology, she couldn’t eat an ‘I’m sorry’ today anymore than she could before. She could appreciate that about him, even if she wanted to keep him at arms’ length.

“From the Exarch?” She’d known he was  _ there _ to a degree but not where in the room. At least, that’s what she told herself when she jumped because there he was, peering over her shoulder (and reading over it).

“I told you to warn me before you did that!”

Ardbert looked at her, unphased.“Knock-knock.” 

She shot him a side-eye for that, tossing the note on the table. “Not the first time someone made me dinner to win me over.” At least there didn’t seem to be drinks included.

“Still, he’s keeping you well-fed. Judging by his people’s faith in him, he seems to be a decent sort.”

“They’re always decent sorts to their followers. ‘Til they’re either not so decent or you’re not their follower.” Honoura furrowed her eyebrows into a sharp vee shape. The Exarch said all the right nice things. He even performed the right kind tasks. But he was a leader of what counted as a city-state. Close enough for Norvrandt anyway. A leader’s people came before a tool. 

Then there was the matter of hiding everything about himself. He’d denied the name of the one person she knew connected to the Tower. And given their different demeanors -- G’raha Tia had been maybe her age or a summer younger. Cheeky, she’d gotten him back for that aethersand nonsense. The Exarch reminded her more of Conrad; old, tired, but in good spirits in spite of a dire existence. But a feeling wasn’t the same as knowing. And there was no one to ask about his past. Except. “You know, he said he was here. Back in your time. Maybe you knew him or?” 

His brow furrowed in thought, peeling back the decades of aimless roaming,“There was no such person in my day. Lot’s happened since the Flood. Since I was… set adrift.” He shook his head, eyes downcast. “We never came to a place like this. I know little more than you do of this city’s history and the Exarch’s past.”

Well, worth a shot.

“Not that it matters,” Ardbert added,”It’s Emet-Selch we should be concerned about. When our world was about to be consumed by Light, the Ascian in white appeared before us. He said that the only way for us to live on was to bring about the Rejoining. Desperate as we were, we heeded his words, not realizing that the Flood was of the Ascians’ own making.” 

Now that he had his teeth in the topic, it was hard to let go. Even harder to hide his bitterness over it. 

“They cannot be trusted. None of them.” He crossed his arms, uncrossed them, crossed them again. There was little else to do to channel his frustration. One downside to being a shade, you were bereft of options. Sometimes, your feelings came across better when you could pound your fist on a table or kick something.“But Emet-Selch had one thing right: one should not fight blindly. That’s what we did. And it cost us everything we held dear.”

There was a very curious silence that came after his rambling -- lengthy enough to pause in his worrying and look back where he’d last seen the other hero he thought still in the room.

She’d sat down and apparently changed her mind about the gift basket. Or, more plausible, she disliked turning down a free meal. Honoura preferred to think she was capable of divorcing her suspicions from her stomach.

“Could you tell me about Seto.” It was an abrupt change of topic, she knew. Even he looked surprised by the suggestion, scoffing and looking askance. She had picked up one half of a sandwich and took an ungainly large bite to chew while she waited, patiently. 

“What about Seto? What is there to say?” 

“You’re the one who knows him, you tell me.” One hand came up to her face to protect the table from crumbs. “Just. Look. Thancred will probably tell me the same thing tomorrow. With more swear words.” Or one of half a dozen other topics ready at hand. Something about cause, something about duty, a mission, a goal, a  _ thing they needed her to accomplish. _

“He just. He seemed very fond of you, is all,”she set her food down, pushing the plate back,“He called for you.”

Ardbert awkwardly looked askance before acquiescing. “Well he’s... done some growing. When we were traveling together, he was nowhere near as big. And he obviously couldn’t speak.” The fondness slipped out in his smile.

“And if he could?” she asked.

“I’d probably regret every foolish thing he ever witnessed.” 

That elicited a snort of laughter from her, quickly stifled but not unnoticed. 

“What about you, anyway?” he inquired.

“What about me, anyway?” Honoura deflected, picking at bread crust to draw her attention elsewhere. 

"Come on, you tell me something for a change,” Ardbert persisted, heading to the table like he meant to take a seat,”You must have a friend like Seto. Chocobo, perhaps?”

“What happened to ‘I hope you’ll have a better answer than this’?” The quote came with a very, very rough approximation of his own tone of voice and accent. She craned her head up to look at him to supplement the impersonation with her own take on his typical frown.

“What happened to throwing your gear to chase me out?”

She sucked on the inside of her cheek for a moment, debating,”Story for a story then? I tell you something, you tell me?” 

He didn’t refuse aloud; she opted to take that as an agreement while she set a second plate. 

“Now hold on a moment, I can’t even--”   
  
“I know. But.” she paused, hand above a selection,”I dunno. Mum’d think it rude. ‘Always put a plate out fer a guest even if they don’t touch it’.” 

“I’m not accepting that as your one story by the way.” 

That time, she laughed in earnest.


	4. pardon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During preparations for war with Eulmore, a revisit to the first time they met.

_ Years Ago, Thanalan  
_ _ Before the fall of Baelsar's Wall _

The Amalj’aa lay dead. Everything smelled of coppery blood and her eyes watered from the smoke of the fires set around their feet. Meeting with the Ala Mhigan conspirators cost time, too much time. Until the boy, whoever he was, corrected her thinking. He’d moved his goalposts a bit further than killing primals. Aimed for a bigger target. There’d been no need to let the Amalj’aa live.

“It’s all a bit much, isn’t it? And, frankly, we don’t have the leisure to do it. Killing the Warrior of Light, on the other hand--that would soon plunge Eorzea into chaos.”

_ We look near the same age _, she thought. Somewhere in the messy early years of adulthood, but he carried himself a lot older. The brash boasting was tinged with youth. It was bait, bait she wished Alphinaud would stop taking and paid attention for a minute, to really get a look. The eyes were a tired shade of blue, faded from growing up too fast and too soon. A face worn from making difficult decisions and bearing the brunt of the consequences to spare the rest.

“One life for one world. A fair exchange--wouldn’t you agree?”

In the end, what had briefly been a gathering of half a dozen Warriors of Light whittled down to one, again. _ Does it always end like this? _ She thought. There was never time to ask questions -- when did they know, how did it happen, how had they shouldered it. What to do. Only ever enough time to witness another tragedy, how it all turned out poorly. Honoura stood alone, again, with crystal in hand and words echoing in her skull.

_ One fool to another. Forge a better path. Seize a better fate. _

* * *

_ Present _ _   
_ _ The First _

They were tucked away in a quiet spot of Fort Jobb. Someone at the Crystarium had mentioned want of help stocking up munitions to prepare for Eulmore’s invasion. Naturally, Honoura couldn’t say no, and Ardbert still kept his vow to watch. Though now watching held more chances for surreptitious conversation, whispered meetings in secluded corners. 

It was strange, wasn't it. To be on good terms with someone you tried to kill. He'd come as close as some of her enemies, probably. Sure, he was effectively harmless now. No chance of hurting her, but she could have shut him out. She hadn’t. They could speak friendly enough about casual things. Sometimes one or the other strayed too far, said the wrong thing, and felt blowback for it. On the whole, he almost dared consider them friends. He preferred friendship over simply pitying him enough to chat. On the scale of troubles she was here to tend to, accommodating a ghost ranked low. 

A selfish part of him relished being accommodated. Everyone in Norvrandt rightfully wanted a piece of her time, her attention, her strength. They needed her. He deserved none of it; were it not for his mistakes, she wouldn’t be here at all. But there was compassion in that furtive heart, for all her moodiness hid it. 

“Could I ask you something?” He'd been there the past half bell, sitting quietly nearby. She was sitting on the floor too, fletching arrows.

“Mn?” Not looking up from her work, she tilted her head in his direction. A silent invitation to continue.

“What'd you think the first time you saw us? My friends and I.” 

Honoura paused, massaging her palm while she mulled over her words. “Surprised, mostly. That there were so many of you. I'd only ever met two other people with a crystal and they'd.” 

Scoffing and shaking her head, she glanced in his direction. “And then well. Not like we had much time to talk about it then. I guess I was a little jealous too. In a way. You all seemed close.” 

“You were jealous of _ us _?” Now it was Ardbert’s turn to raise an eyebrow at her, arms folded across his chest, “What did we even have for you to be jealous of?”

“Not your situation,” she clarified, softly, “Just. The thought of having someone else who understood a little--”

“There’s a whole collective with you right now.”

Her answer to him was a return to activity -- fletch an arrow, set it in a quiver, start another. Methodically cutting feathers with a knife, dabbing a bit of glue to attach them, occasionally muttering a curse when she dribbled it on the stone floor. 

The air between them cooled; even bereft of his senses, Ardbert felt the urge to shudder. He’d treaded on something. The quiet stretched long enough she thought him gone. Untethered from the land of the living he was; stationary he wasn’t.

“I’m sorry. Only reason I asked about it was I wanted to apologize.” Ardbert pretended to fiddle with a gauntlet, like it needed tending to. Like he needed tending to anything.

“For what?”

He furrowed his brow, keeping up the charade of occupying himself. “That time. On the Source. What I said. What I did.”

“Not the first person I fought with who ended up treating me nicer later.”

“I’m sure I’m not, but.”

Honoura wrinkled her nose at him, but that could have been from the smell of glue. “If it makes you feel better. Apology accepted. Pardon given.” She shrugged, and went back to her task at hand, “I was angrier with Urianger that day than any of you. You were just trying to do the right thing. ‘S not your fault.”

“Is that a pardon from you or a pardon from the **hero**?”

“Why the sudden pestering me about this?” She stood to stretch, loosening muscles stiffened by sitting. Rolling her shoulders, the left one popped audibly. Her back followed suit when she twisted, so loud he could almost feel his own bones creak.

“Never mind, it’s nothing,” came his abrupt reply, “Forget what I said.”

A creeping sensation prickled the hair on the back of his neck; he looked up to her staring intently. Studying him, arms crossed, head tilted to send wispy strands of hair in her face.

“_ What do you want _, Ardbert?”

In response, he dissipated, gone in an instant. Leaving her, once again, the last one standing.

* * *

A tea cup was growing cold back at the Pendants when a proper reply rang out.

“I was jealous too,” he admitted, suddenly sitting across from her. Dinner had been set out which she hadn’t touched yet, nose in a book instead. She glanced up over the edge of the tome but held her tongue.

“There we were. Fighting it out. You were just defending yourself. Here I was doing my best, for. For the right reasons, and it didn’t measure up. I thought ‘She’s around my age. How’s she better than me? By so much? How am I such a failure, ignored by Hydaelyn?’”

“Debatable.”  
  
“Not the point. To hear you say you were jealous of us, of _ me _? What did I have you don’t?” He laced his fingers together, staring across the table. Dull blue eyes studying her face not unlike she’d stared at him earlier. There was a soft thump as the book closed shut, followed by a thunk as it hit the table.

“I replaced a friend they lost. Another Warrior of Light. They. The Scions found out when I showed up to aid them where she did not. So. Not only did they grieve, they had to deal with me, too. Fill me in.”Her eyes were hooded by long eyelashes as she said this, hidden from perception, “And I’m. I’m not easy to get along with.”

A thought occurred to him then about the stories they told one another. His were usually adventuring days. When it was just him and Lamitt against the world; some time Renda-Rae got him into trouble. Making fun of Branden’s old, creaky knees. The early adventuring days, before the heavy personal losses. Before a Shadowkeeper and Ascians. When their names were said with smiles.

Hers went back to years before. There’d be childhood stories growing up in a forest that sounded as wild and deadly as Rak’Tika, with a canopy so thick night seemed eternal and tinged with emerald. She had two sisters, one brother. They were scattered about but kept in touch. He knew she’d been a sailor briefly, a fact that kept her up half the night with him excitedly asking questions about it. And about the pirates.

Any adventure tales told she peppered with wry comments about ‘ill-gotten glory’. If any of her compatriots were mentioned, it was typically the twins. Hardly anyone else. 

“You’re not so bad once someone gets to know you,”he said, “As you are. Only Warrior from the Source to me.”

“I. That’s... not,” she stammered, and swallowed the words.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that, come again?”

“Not the point of this!”

“Are you _ embarrassed _ of a compliment?” 

The teasing tone was unmistakable. Honoura had one way to handle this, as herself. “_ You think you’re so funny. _” She threw the roll through him when he laughed in response.

Ardbert traipsed silently through the Crystarium later that night. Almost everyone lay in bed asleep aside from the night shift crews. Guards stood watch, healers at the Spagyrics brewed and bottled potions. A barkeep wiped down their counter, tending to straggling insomniacs sipping spirits. None of them noticed him, as usual. It still stung at times to go unseen, unheard. But for tonight, for the first time in an age, he had a thank you ringing in his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda wish at some point you revisited the events of 3.1 and 3.4, so I figured 'why not do that in some time after Il Mheg and before Rak'tika?'


	5. sharing

Honoura thought she conceived a decent plan to get to know Ardbert. He was a ghost, he came and went as he liked, and he had all of one person he could converse with. The same person who, rather tempestuously, first chased him out with a well thrown shoe. 

Her other plan to ignore him until it was time to go home faltered when he’d shown well. Kindness? No, wrong word. Consideration. Recognition. That subtle - ah, there it was. Comprehension. He understood. Without her saying much, either. So when the story idea hit upon her after returning from Il Mheg, she ran with it. Before long it was a habit. Ardbert’d show up, she’d have dinner, they both talked about anything unrelated to the here and now.

Despite their own exciting lives, they ran out of good stories soon enough. There were the usual anecdotes; a quest here, a stranger who became a friend, a cantankerous hermit met in a cave once or twice. 

“Y’shtola took her name with the Night’s Blessed. Honest, I think she’s starting to take more than that from Matoya,” Honoura furrowed her brow at her own observation, and hastily decided it remain her own. 

“We used to tease Branden about acting like our father. His favorite retort was ‘well, just wait, soon we'll all be our parents,’” Ardbert performed a crude impression of the knight’s accent, and then paused to consider. They both looked at one another for a moment.

“You don’t think-”   
  
“Oh I hope not.”

* * *

Some recurring weirdos they would not claim were friends but sure spent a lot of time with. 

“So he ate his chicken he claimed was a god?”   
  
“I stopped asking questions with that lot,” she said, pouring herself another cup of tea atop a generous helping of sugar at the bottom of a cup,”Save maybe how I keep finding them.”

From there they retold tales that savaged their dignity at the time that was funny looking back on it now. 

“Seto did that? Truly?  _ Your _ Seto?” she stuffed another mouthful of a creampuff into her face, covering her mouth as she chewed.   
  
“I stopped wearing trousers with pockets because of that feathery bastard,” Ardbert rolled his eyes in recollection, but there was a wistfulness to his tone. 

“You’re having me on.”   
  
“I can think of  _ so  _ many better things to have you on about if I wanted,” he laughed, shaking his head. He was right of course. He knew that she’d like him a lot less if he painted himself better.

They danced around or avoided the worst moments. Both of them silently agreed they knew more than enough without details.

* * *

Eventually to find anything worth sharing, worth calling  _ good _ , they reached back further. Years before the Blessing, before an Echo. But the details for a lot of those had faded, and were littered with many an ‘I think,’ ‘what  _ was  _ their name,’ or ‘I’m not sure anymore’. Calling back the life before felt akin to remembering a dream upon waking. Some of the details stuck, but the narrative got lost.

Inspiration struck Honoura during an afternoon in the Cabinet of Curiosities. Somehow, in the floor to ceiling tower of tomes, her eyes spotted a familiar title on a shelf.  _ Mythos, Legends and Tales: The Black Shroud. _ That it was here both delighted and confused her. Tapping her finger against the spine, she decided she cared less about solving a mystery than she did begging to borrow it from Moren.

Ardbert found her later sitting, rather perilously in his opinion, on the window sill hunched over a book in her lap. Knowing he was there, the way she always seemed to, she looked up.

“What’ve you got there?”

She beckoned him over with a wordless pat of the windowsill next to her. The book was open to somewhere in the middle of the book.  _ Oisín the Wildling _ was printed on the title page.

“I thought we could just read. If you want,” she explained,“They published a set of these. One for each city-state, I think. Ah, fairy stories. Legends.”   
  
“How’d a copy wind up here?”   
  
“Not sure. I mean. Came with the Tower I s’pose, but.” There was a shrug of her shoulders, and a look to him,“I can look for something else, if you want.”

“What’s a wildling?” he asked, already half-distracted by the words on the page, prompting them to both tuck in and find out. It mattered not this was his first time and her hundredth. He saved his other questions for a late dinner break.

“So are these all made up or real?” Honoura had brought up the Shroud, with its watchful spirits you could speak to living everywhere enough for him to wonder. 

“Both,” she shoved a bite of dinner in her mouth and chased it with a sip of ale,“My uncles and aunties used to tell me family stories that sounded close enough. The book was more for people in other parts of Eorzea. For us it. It’s the Shroud. It’s old. It’ll still be there even when Gridania’s gone.” Wood’s Will be done.

“Even this one?” 

“Which one?”

“Six White Swans of Am-”

“Amdapor.” she finished for him, between bites,“Sort of our Ronka. Rich with magic. Did you-”

“Yeah.”   
  
“Then let’s.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey yeah I'm still alive, some other stuff got away from me. Namely some other art projects, and I just don't have enough brainpower to write and draw with full focus.


	6. listening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rak'tika's shade shelters secrets as much as truths.

_The Source_

_Cartenau_

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The scoured earth of Cartenau still possessed a hard outer shell. It gave under even the lightest of footfalls, of which there were a few pockmarking the ground. Dust wafted up with every step, curling up and through the still air. Even animals avoided the barren, ashen plains. 

And why would they come here? The atmosphere felt _ dead _, as it must have ever since the Calamity. The Echo whispered, trying to say something. She shook her head to brush it off. She didn’t want to read a graveyard. 

The whole landscape -- in the broken shards of magitek and weaponry scattered about. The fragmented remains of uniforms and army standards too, scattered amongst huge crystalline shards of aether. You didn’t need a memory. The bones said enough.

As Nero lead the way to Omega’s burial ground, another memory rattled in Honoura’s head. _ Forge a better path. Seize a better fate. _ Had she done that here? Was this gamble the best idea? _ Do we not risk repeating the mistakes of the Allagans she’d said, so why are we out here why did I say yes. _ Was she just following along again, doing as someone bid because the real chance had passed her by. Back when Ilberd first betrayed them all. Back when Alphinaud was playing pretend at savior of a realm, and she played at little more than his enforcer for lack of ideas on what else to do. 

She wished there had been a chance to ask that dead man for better advice. _ What do you do when everything’s pulling you too fast? _ She left no room for herself to debate or argue. Because she was _ useful _ that way to them. Because they _ needed _ her (well not her, specifically). Until something happened to her, then they’d slot in a replacement. 

There’d be a need for adjustment of course. But Hydaelyn had done it before. Maybe the only better fate she could try for was an escape to solitude, to be no one again. Fading was softer than burning out. And she had burned brightly.

“Now where was the…? Ah!”

As the control panel, Allagan tech older than the mausoleum surrounding it, she thought, _ Well. Too late to stray from this specific path. Sorry. _

“I’ve enabled the teleporter. One brief jump, and we shall arrive in Omega’s control room.”

_ Hope this isn't a mistake. _

* * *

_The First_

_Rak'tika Greatwood_

Rak’tika made her homesick for the Shroud. Not the battered, Calamity-scarred version of present day. The one from her childhood, dark and full of mystery. Even its full name, the Rak’tika Greatwood, inspired the same sort of eerie awe about it. Perhaps in opposition to the Light, the whispers of spirits still resonated. 

Or maybe she simply felt nostalgic; the Light penetrated the canopy here in patches, taking away the tinge of green coloring her girlhood. Nevertheless, Honoura appreciated the journey on foot. She could admire the treetops, try to puzzle out the path to the top within the grooves of bark, hear children’s laughter ringing in her ears. Perhaps she admired too much -- she hadn’t noticed Minfilia approaching until the girl tugged on her arm.

"Thancred sent me to fetch you. He noticed you'd fallen back," she explained, tucking errant strands of blonde hair back behind her ear.

"Oh. Ah. Sorry," Honoura glanced at her, then the backs of the two Scions ahead.

"Could I ask what you were looking at?"

"Just… remembering things. Not the Echo," she clarified,"From a long time ago."

“Lose yourself in a reverie, did you?” She felt the sneer before she saw it -- Emet-Selch had opted to appear behind them. Predators never approached head on. Hence him strolling past just far enough to stop and look at her with hooded, golden eyes.

“I wouldn't have thought you one to idle when you have such important business,” he quipped. Honoura failed to muster more of a response than quickening her step, tugging on Minfilia’s sleeve to keep up. Emet-Selch exhausted her. How he loomed, his dry commentary, his presence aggravated enough to ignore the Echo in his company. 

Spotting him in the open reminded her of hunters she’d spy in the Shroud. If you saw them, it was because they let you. That was just as dangerous; you never knew what they learned about _ you. _Were he here, her father would joke it was improper to scowl at a hunter lest you entice it. Much less pick a fight with it. Honoura had always been a poor listener when the mood struck.

“No lands must remain beyond our grasp! Go forth. Conquer. Rule.” The Ascian strutted out ahead, arms open wide to the Light-saturated heavens. Save for Urianger, he easily outpaced the rest of the party. Another petty, frustrating quality to the man.

“Forgive me. A sudden pang of nostalgia for those halcyon days. Exploring virgin territories, subjugating primitive peoples. All for the glory of Garlemald!” Behind him, Honoura rolled her eyes and pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth. _ Don’t take the bait, don’t take the bait... _

“If you’ve brought your ivory standard, I’ll be happy to tell you where to stick it.” Thancred clearly took the bait. And he had the glare to prove he wasn’t going to let go of it easily. 

“Can we not simply take a moment to enjoy the view together? Or would you rather I spied on you from the shadows?” Emet-Selch drawled, as unperturbed as a house cat. _ It must be a Garlean thing _, she thought. Maybe it was more correct to say Garlean ego was an Ascian thing? If she ever saw Nero again, she was giving him grief for a year. He deserved it (he always deserved it). For now, she merely watched Minfilia truly try to give Emet the benefit of the doubt. 

“If… if you really want to stay, then help us fight.” Minfilia spoke softly, but firm. 

“Mmm… No, I think not. I am an observer-- nothing more. Even shielded by the shadows of these boughs, I feel the Light most keenly.” He smiled wryly, eyes half-lidded, not quite as mealy mouthed as Hancock’s.

Close enough that she gave the Ascian the same thin, tight smile she offered to Hancock regularly. _ He’s full of shite _, she thought, eyes narrowed. On the other hand, accepting real help felt as dangerous a deal as the Fuath had turned out to be. Something inside said the fewer debts owed with this one, the better. 

“_ Fine, _” Thancred muttered, “I will suffer your company if I must, but not your commentary,” He pressed on to Citia Swamp and presumably, Y’shtola.

“Oh come now. Much more of this, and I may very well begin to regret my show of good faith.” Having found a more responsive bear to bait, Emet seemed poised to continue poking him.

It took the ashes of Ft. Gohn to get them both to abandon the topic.

* * *

The cavern’s mossy floor masked her and Y’shtola’s footfalls as they surreptitiously crept through the encampment. Pale blue candles shone a faint luminescence to guide Honoura's feet and provide ample shadow to hide in. 

Jacke would be proud if he knew. The Sisters' little redcoat finally learned how to skulk properly, even if her thieves’ cant still stumbled, tripped over itself, and landed in a garbled heap. Y’shtola trusted her enough to follow where she tiptoed. Given how tense their reunion went, Honoura preferred to focus on that. 

Still, there it was, in the back of her mind. _She called you sin eater_. _She didn’t even know you._ _Urianger had to _**_convince her_**_. _Honoura shook her head; this wasn’t the time. She’d stew on it later, when Y’shtola wasn’t three fulm back relying on her. “Just about there,” she whispered, and slipped ahead.

The artifact of keenest interest to Y’shtola lay tucked back well within the Children’s territory, some remote antechamber with murals of residents of the Greatwood before it was even a wood.

Ardbert could scarcely believe where they had ended up. He huffed a laugh to announce himself, just to Honoura's left. A startle that earned him a raised elbow in defense for a hello.

“Sorry, sorry, just...these paintings! They seem familiar," he said, brow furrowed in concentration and tapping a thumb against his jaw, "They were..depictions of heroes throughout history. That's right."

Ardbert looked to her. She glanced back to Y’shtola and raised a finger to her lips. The miqo'te might get lost in her work, but unless something drastically changed her ears remained sharp as ever. But there was an attentive look in her eyes and she mouthed _ keep going _. A slight jerk of her head towards the decorated walls.

He pointed at the first, moss-riddled with age,"Supposedly, the age of gods… then that's the empire of Ronka… And this…” Had not been here before. This was new-- newer than him, anyway. Another change he missed as a scattered soul. 

“There was a man. A researcher who pored over these pieces…He offered us work when we needed it. The usual work,” he shrugged, “Slaying beasts, delivering provisions. A funny old bugger, he was, but he had a good heart.”

Honoura glanced towards Y'shtola tracing her fingers over stonework; following her gaze, he smiled faintly, “But I see you relate.” A strong sigh through her nose answered him with a roll of her eyes. Turning her attention away from the scholar, she pointed at the paintings again.

“He believed this first painting dated back to a time of myth and legends. A tribute to the heroes of a long-forgotten era," a ghostly hand traced the pigments, ghostly aura illuminating the whites and pinks as well as a lantern, "The story went that it was rediscovered by an explorer from Ronka, who was so struck by its majesty that a second painting was commissioned, commemorating the heroes of _ their _day. One day, you will all be here too he said. Heroes immortalized forever. Maybe I’ll paint you myself.” Ardbert walked himself back to stand nearer to her.

Honoura had at this point opened a notebook, and between pages of pressed flowers was carefully copying the images with a piece of charcoal. The tip left the paper as she looked up at him. Listening. 

“I had a good laugh at that myself," he chuckled. Wistfulness had settled in, the softer kind of melancholy, "We were only trying to make our way, after all. It seems… he actually went and did it. Before or after the Flood, I wonder." 

Ardbert looked again at the last, latest piece. There were five figures if you squinted just right. It had the brightest colors… and the most wear. The foe resembled a mess of dark scribbles, like a child had taken to the piece. Or maybe it was Darkness. It wasn't the Shadowkeeper, but maybe it could be. Artist’s liberties and all that. 

A breathless sigh escaped, his shoulders sagging. Just as quick as it came, the charm at idea withered. The mural might exist, but it barely did so. Swaths of stone had been wiped clean by now. The figure in the middle could barely be made out in bits and pieces.

“Rather faded, isn’t it, compared to the others." Not unlike himself these days, really. A pale imitation of what he’d been. Who he’d been.

"Or did someone try to scrape it off the wall? Maybe the man himself, once he came to his senses. Do you suppose your deeds will warrant an addition to this collection? Or some other kind of monument?” he asked, tearing his attention away from past regrets to current woes. Honoura sported a more inscrutable expression. Would she earn that kind of remembrance? Did she even want it? And was it even fair -- she’d taken this on after someone else had fallen back on the Source. Now she was, in a way, usurping his place.

Neither got the chance to give or receive an answer.

“There you are!” Y’shtola announced her presence, with an air of pride and delight,“I have everything I need. Let us quit this place.” The scholar’s sense of timing was impeccable, and while she was blind, discomfort easy to read. Particularly when her cohort had carried an air of it the whole expedition. 

“Is something the matter? We should go. The others are waiting.” The reminder of duty shook Honoura from whatever reverie she seemed lost in. Shaking her head, she waved Y’shtola off,“‘S fine. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this has a lot more hits than I thought it'd get, ahaha thank you all I really appreciate it. I also appreciate you bearing with me. Because if it's not obvious I am absolutely flying by the seat of my pants.


	7. respect

“Over here, follow me,” he waved her over, while she hugged the large owl totem to her chest and scurried after. Sure enough, the other owl statues sat silent. Whatever ancient magics thrumming within remained dormant.

“This feels a little like cheating,” she peeked into the next room. Every ancient civilization at some point seemed to reach a fascination with ancient puzzles or enchanting mundane items. 

“You’re more than welcome to learn it the hard way.” Being the unburdened one here, Ardbert strolled right in, stopped, and craned his neck to look back,“Coming?”

Honoura frowned, cheeks puffed out. Was he being cheeky? He seemed cheeky at the moment. His chuckling at the sight of her face only made her more suspicious. Still, they were pressed for time…

“I won’t tell anyone your secret,” he teased when she fell in step behind him,“Come on, I think I still remember this.” 

“What were you lot even doing in here?” she asked, treading where ghostly footprints walked ahead.

“Helping Lamitt, her people were suffering from a plague. Ronka was legendary for how advanced it was,” he paused, blue eyes scanning the room,“We all got turned around plenty of times looking for clues.” Once he had his bearings, he waved his hand to beckon her along.

“A bloody understatement that is.” She stopped to readjust her grip, giving fingers and elbows a momentary rest, “Did you find it, though?”

“Hm?” 

“The cure-” Honoura stopped herself. There had never been any spoken rule about the rest of his companions. But that didn’t cancel out the possibility of an unspoken one. “You don’t have to fill me in. It’s not my business.”

He waved it off, still picking out the right path from memory. “It’s all right,” he assured,“I’m the one who brought it up.” Now he had to decide if he was brave enough to talk about it, about any of them beyond scant details.

Honoura spared him from waffling too long. “Oh TWELVE TAKE THIS BLOODY BIRD.” Which they appeared to have done just that. The owl totem she’d been so carefully carrying had vanished, whisked away the instant another statue laid eyes upon it. He looked at her. She looked at him. They both looked back towards the entrance where she’d first gotten it.

“Suppose there’s time enough for the story _ now, _” he commented.

“I didn’t mean to,” she ducked her head in embarrassment.

“You owe me one for later.”

“Deal.”

“I guess I’ll start at the beginning…” With that, they both turned and headed back to grab the artifact and try again. He left out how many times he himself had lost that owl in the same manner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I solved that thing with the bird in Ronka on my first attempt and immediately felt like it was out of character.


	8. advice

Her own face stared back at her in recognizable sameness. Same coal black hair. The same two thick eyebrows over dark brown eyes. Inquisitive, her mother had been very fond of calling them. She wrinkled her nose. Her double did the same. Honoura opened her nightshirt to look down to look for something, anything amiss. 

While she couldn't see it, her mirror counterpart also was. Every scar, every pore. Nothing, but _ nothing, _ looked different, right down to the quarter moon scar on her thumb. Both reflection and original confirmed it with one another. Nothing seemed different. And yet. _ She's not as she was on the Source. _

Her cheeks puffed out. _ Apparently not enough I deserve to be told anything. _Because she wasn't supposed to know, was she? Urianger had offered nothing. Y'shtola shut down any chance to speak. As usual, she was the tool.

A bright flicker of light in the mirror alerted her to _ someone _standing behind her.

"Do you want to tell me why you're making faces at yourself?" Ardbert asked, one eyebrow quirked.

* * *

“So there’s a light sealed inside of you, she says."

"That's all I could catch eavesdropping, anyroad." She looked down at the cards already spread on the table. Turned out, playing games when you had the only set of corporeal hands didn't guarantee you'd win. 

Ardbert was good at remembering his hand, almost infuriatingly so. His cards remained face down between turns; he still knew what they read. Holding up his card to play, she glanced at him, then down at the table. 

He looked for a frustratingly short amount of time from across the table and pointed at one of the open corners. “Well, you wouldn’t know it from the outside," Ardbert paused, then thought to add,"You look the same as you ever did to me. I mean… not counting the first time we met. Obviously.”

"Oh _ haha _," she deadpanned, sourness from losing creeping in,"Sorry. I'm just."

"You're worried," he offered.

She rubbed at the scar on her thumb before laying his card down. Drawing her own to play, she said,"I keep wondering about what to do if she's right." 

“Have faith in them. They care more than you think about you." He rolled his eyes in response to her very skeptical expression at that,"You don't see what I see."

"And you know we've had this conversation," she plunked a card down, tapping on it. He focused on scrutinizing the card game rather than arguing. You couldn't make the willfully blind see. Even if it right in front of them. 

“Well, _ I _can't lift a finger to help myself, much less you," Ardbert chided, pointing at her,"The best I can offer is you look out for them, and hope that they look out for you.” 

Tapping a ghostly finger above his next pick, he pointed to another empty spot,"I believe that's my win."

"Seven bloody hells," she scooped up the whole deck to shuffle, cut, and deal again. Thoroughly. Maybe shuffle more than once, and absolutely while she took a sip of the closest approximation of Lominsan rum she'd found. Frankly, it was a stretch to even call it rum, but no one in Norvrandt had the liberty to complain. She shouldn't either.

Ardbert watched in pensive silence. While she dealt out a fresh hand, he piped up,“... Think he was telling the truth? Emet, I mean. All that rot about Hydaelyn being no different from any other primal."

Honoura shrugged, spreading his cards out in front of him neatly in one smooth sweep. He crossed his arms, brow furrowed. An anxious revelation rattled around: _ What would that make Her blessing? Just an edict to follow? Were we just slaves the whole time? _

"Would that mean… I, we never had a chance at a better choice before?" 

Honoura froze, fingertips gripping the rim of her glass. Her gut had been ready to write the Ascian off, but her gut hadn't have guessed he'd willingly retrieve Y'shtola. Even if only to boast. She recoiled at the idea he'd right or honest about anything on an instinctual level. 

"I'm not sure," she admitted,"About any of it. What to think. I feel like he's up to something. He makes me second guess a lot. But. I mean. From what anyone's ever told me, death frees a soul from tempering, yeah?" Not that she had the means to verify that. Ascian possession yes. But that wasn't the same. She gnawed on the inside of her cheek. "You didn't seem a zealot from where I stood."

At the same time, would a puppet accept being shown its strings. And would another puppet know to do anything but strengthen the lie?

“Ahh, let’s pay him no mind. Forget it," Ardbert scoffed, waving a hand in front of his face,"Lies are the Ascians stock-in-trade. Even if there's a measure of truth. The one in white told me the Ardor was the only way to save all this. It wouldn't exist now if things turned out different.”

Honoura claimed the upper left corner of the Triad table first, and then lifted up each of his cards for him to review one by one. He winced, and made his least bad choice of a dreadful hand. 

Matches started and ended in silence between them, with little more than the occasional wry comment about a bad hand or losing a close game. The moon was high before they spoke again. 

"Ardbert?"

"Hm?"

"Do you wish you had? I mean. That plan for the Ardor," she elaborated, slouching forward, one hand tucked under her chin with the elbow on the table.

He snorted. “Well I wouldn't be losing right now if I had, would I?" A crass joke, one he quickly moved on from when he didn't hear her own chuckles,"Why'd you ask?"

"Just… remembering what you said in Rak'tika. About the researcher and the paintings. I didn't get to answer then," she set her hand of cards down on the table, tapping her thumb against them,"And just.. knowing how it all turned out."

"Honoura, look. I’m no saint or savior--I'm in no place to judge. Not now." _ Particularly not now, _ he thought. Too many decades gone, too many mistakes. Who was he to deem what they did as the right or wrong way. Besides, he knew...he _ knew _it was never that clear cut. Maybe he could argue he'd have spared a lot of people terrible deaths. No century of sin eaters. No century of daylight. But… even so.

"You know what I do know? When I saw the people of Slitherbough look up at the night sky? Celebrating the return of the dark… felt good. Felt really good," he smiled ruefully," Moments like that I cherished--much more than the adventure. The quiet after the storm. I always took comfort in that. Made the heavier weights easier to bear. Made me want to try again."

All too soon, he would try again. There would be no rescuing the souls the sin eater took by his hand.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's sort of ridiculous how Rak'tika got away from me. But I really thought I needed to divvy it up, just because the tone shift felt too radical to me.


	9. please

The rain fell in buckets, washing away blood and sin eater ichor alike. Finding your way was difficult -- and often instead of a torch, the best way to see was the foe right in front of your face. The battlefield cast an eerie glow as waves of sin eaters fought, died, and vanished in a burst of Light. Or, in worse cases, when a soldier spun a feathery cocoon and rose anew to attack former comrades.

Ardbert had followed the Guard after alarm bells rang throughout the Crystarium. A pointless exercise he knew. But an inability to look away while others fought and cried for help kept him marching with them. Some of them looked young. Too young. Others yawned sleepily and tried to hide it. 

The sin eaters devoured or turned them all the same. Ardbert watched from atop a hill, feeling a wretched uselessness. He'd lead an army here once against the Shadowkeeper. A war that turned out to be pointless, the result of Ascian machinations. Then too, he'd felt a wretched uselessness, when doing the right thing had only brought disaster. He all but stumbled upon the two soldiers. One was ashen faced, weakly clutching a wound in their side. The other was trying to ward off terror by soothing a dying friend. 

“We need only hold out a little while longer. Reinforcements are coming, remember? The captain said so. We’re going to be all right…” he said, voice quivering. His hands were red, as he tried to staunch the lifeblood seeping out onto the violet hills of Lakeland.

Ardbert shook his head. He'd heard this before too; the comfortable lies one told the dying.  _ It’s not that bad. It will be alright. You'll be fine.  _

_ We'll save this world. _

The sin eater crept up on all three of them, its hungry chittering alerting just one. Ardbert panicked.  _ No! No please!  _ As futile as it was, he screamed, “Run! Run, damn you!”

But the soldier was as deaf to him as any other on Norvrandt. “The Warrior of Darkness has returned. The bloody night has returned! So stay with me, eh? You can’t go dying now!” he choked out, smiling weakly. His friend's eyes were glassy, lifeless. Death for them both crept forward, unnoticed. Save by one running hellsbent to their aid with axe in hand.

“Godsdamnit! Please let this work, please let this work!” He wanted to hope. Maybe. Just this once. It was the right thing. It was a good cause. Please.

“No! Stay back, stay back!” The livelier of the two soldiers (was the other even alive now) cried, scrambling on slippery grass to try to flee. His friend moved not an ilm. 

Ardbert knew the outcome before it even happened. The sin eater passed through him like fog, undaunted, chittering hungrily at the two young (so very young) guards.

“Help, help! Someone, anyone-” the rest of his words died, as the sin eater gorged itself on the youth’s aether, watering the soil with fresh blood. Ardbert mournfully turned away.

“Why did you spare me? Why? What have I done to deserve this mercy?!”

* * *

Ardbert stood framed in nightfall when Honoura slipped in, face streaked with a mix of blood and grime, smelling of sweat, leather, and dust. It was the first she'd seen of him in days; he'd disappeared (as only a spirit could) after Eulmore ambushed them. 

She thought she'd caught his glow there, a low hanging star. But he'd never apparated, and when everyone had healed enough it was clear Amh Araeng couldn't wait any longer. An uncomfortable absence after so much chatter in the Greatwood.

“So this is where you hid," she said, depositing her potions bag by the door and uncoupling weapons to set on top. It wasn't a direct question. But the  _ where were you?  _ hung in the air.

“Sometimes the dead would rather not be disturbed.” His tone was back to that familiar melancholic bark, staring up at twinkling stars and a moon near to full. With a wave of his hand, he asked, “Enough about me. What of Amh Araeng?” 

Honoura flinched; what she wanted to say was the entire time in Amh Araeng had been quarrels with grief. Fights with Thancred’s grief, fights with locals. Even her own grief. Minfilia was never coming back. She knew that before, sure. The first time Honoura saw her in the aetherial sea it felt final. At the time the cause had been Hydaelyn. The woman who’d put in the most effort to make her welcome had left her the soonest, subsumed by the Mothercrystal. 

Honoura never called her a  _ friend  _ exactly, but Minfilia had acted one. Minfilia had been a lot of things she wasn't. Softer, kinder, more considerate. She’d wanted it more than Honoura ever had, to help people. And it hurt, it hurt to know that, and it hurt more to keep mum about it. Such was the price for being the key to success. For being the one success hinged on. You got up and kept on and your own feelings came second.  _ What of Amh Araeng, indeed _ , she thought, and sat down at the table rather than give him a word.

Ardbert waited for it. A cutting retort, a rebuttal. Even a boot. But the air lacked the chill of her silent treatment. The only anger he felt in the room was his own. He risked a look over his shoulder, braced for anything. 

She was just sitting there, forlornly shedding gloves, helmet on the floor by her feet. Filthy head to toe and quiet as a mouse, eyes watery. She… she was ready to cry. And she seemed so little. Was she always this small? He keenly remembered teasing about how petite she was, once or twice. Now she just seemed reduced, like she’d held herself as tall as she could. An all too familiar feeling.

“That bad?” Any apology uttered right now felt like one done more for his conscience.

“I saw Minfilia.”

Ardbert stared at her, fumbling to string together a coherent thought. All he could see was Nabaath falling to the Flood. All he could see was Minfilia sparing him, saying his time had not come. That he was meant to give hope.

"And? What did she say -- did she tell you why I'm here, why I'm stuck like this?"

Honoura snuck in a furtive glance and winced preemptively,"The Echo showed me what happened when you made it back from the Source. Stopping the Flood."

"But did she tell you what she meant--what she meant by a role I had to play-that rot about how my time hadn’t yet come?  _ I died. What about my time had not yet come? _ ” Ardbert's knees gave out from under him; while he didn't sink  _ into  _ the floor, he did sit kneeling in front of her. He felt dull, the edges of him were fraying again, spinning off into a loop of  _ trapped here trapped forever always alone doomed to wander failed to save them failed to save  _ ** _anything_ ** _ .  _

Dark eyes flitted away to look elsewhere. Sometimes the dead shouldn’t be disturbed. Particularly in a time of grief. What could she say anyway? Nothing. 

He wanted to scream. The anger for it was there, the hurt. He wanted to cry, to throw something, any little piece of action that could show the world his anguish. But it was useless to even try. Ardbert knew it, been terribly reminded. Now he knew it was pointless to think that'd change. He was bound, now and forever. “I see. So, the reason I must suffer this purgatory shall forever remain a mystery." Was he doomed to witness then? Until she either saved this star or it fell to ruin some other way?

Those were the words he said, full of resigned misery. 

All she heard was shattering. 

A million wine glasses, a thousand windows, reverberating in her ears and within her very core. Hot, bright, her veins felt they contained molten metal burning its way up from her fingertips to her arms to her chest. Her ribs strained to contain her lungs as they fought for air, only for her lungs to collapse once the light reached them. The heart of a star beat inside instead of one made of flesh. Her stomach churned; Honoura tasted a strange sort of bile. Not the usual acidic burn, this tasted like wet ash. She was burning up from the inside out. 

Crumpling out of her seat to the floor, she squeezed her eyes shut and cupped a hand over her mouth. She didn’t want to vomit. She  _ couldn’t,  _ she mustn’t, because if it was that palest shade of white then what. 

Ardbert kneeled in front of her, panicking. Shite, this was bad, this was  **very bad** _ . Please don't, please don't let this happen to her, she's your Chosen,  _ he thought, the first prayer he's maybe made to the Mothercrystal in decades.

"Honoura, Honoura look at me," Ardbert pleaded, leaning in,"Look at me, please. What’s the matter? Are you all right?"

One eye cracked open and peeked through strands of hair, the iris faded from dark umber to an amber.

_ That’s not good.  _

“Good, stay with me now,” Ardbert lied, even if his face betrayed the truth. Godsdamnit, if she ever  _ needed  _ someone to help her, it was now. Why was no one here!? Instead she was stuck with him. The watcher, the silenced witness. Something was wrong, and he couldn’t do more than keep her company. Out of instinct too stubborn to die, the same instinct that had him shouting in the night, he reached over to squeeze her shoulder. 

The jolt startled more than it hurt -- a strong static charge erupting from where his hand met her shoulder. His hand met her shoulder. He had purchase. Just as quickly he let go, shocked. 

“What… what just  _ happened? _ ” He stared at his open palm; the tingle of where his aether met hers -- where he felt her shoulder still resonated. His mind raced. He touched someone. For the first time in a hundred years,  _ he’d felt someone.  _ All the panic from just before drained out of him, replaced with shock.  _ He’d _ ** _ felt_ ** _ someone. _

On her end, there’d been the briefest sense of a reassuring squeeze, followed by a lack of anything. The burning in her chest faded from inferno to embers. Honoura clenched and unclenched her hands so tight her nails left quarter moon impressions in her palms. They gave the certainty she was whole, that they still worked. That they were even still hers. Her nerves relaxed, the Echo quieted. Ashes still coated her mouth as a reminder. But beyond that. 

“Do I?”

“Still the same on the outside to me.” He assured, tucking away the memory from before.  _ A little paler _ , he thought. He chalked that up to the fright. He preferred it over the alternative. A small smile graced her face before the questions tumbled out.

“What happened? How did we-”

“I  _ felt _ you.” He stared at his own hand again, wiggling his fingers, looking for some difference. Some change from the last time he’d attempted to grasp at anything, at anyone. With his marvel came an immense sense of craving. He’d touched and been touched. Gods, how long. The relief at being heard was nothing compared to this.

“...Could we?” he tentatively held his hand out, palm up. Honoura lightly brushed her fingertips against his first. Then, shyly, laid her hand on top of his. Her fingers barely curled around the curve of his palm. There was a jolt again, less of a surprise this time. But it was a connection, solid and warm. 

“Ha. Oh my gods. I-we can touch. I don’t believe it,” Ardbert gave a jittery laugh. It was all he could do in lieu of anything more; he squeezed his fingers around her hand, worried it was too tight, and loosened them again. He squeezed again, feeling her heartbeat through her veins. Gods, it was so close to alive. 

“All this time I could have just hit you instead of scattering my inventory on the floor,” Honoura smiled slightly at her own weak joke. The gloves looked leather, but all she could register was a sense of solidity. Condensed aether maybe, or something close to it. Still, there were four fingers and a thumb, a little longer than hers and clinging on.

When she slipped his grasp, he fought the urge to reach again, to catch her by the wrist and hold on. “Forgive me if I’m glad you didn’t. I’ve seen you hit people,” he quipped, as a distraction. Though a small part of him was curious -- would it even hurt if she did strike him? Could he register other types of touch? A knock against his breastplate indicated he wasn’t the only curious one.

“What  _ are _ you doing?”  “... Wanted to see if it’d feel like metal,” Honoura admitted, sheepishly looking away, “Doesn’t really.” He couldn’t resist; his laughter rang out. Her, suddenly self-conscious for some half-baked idea. He found he  _ didn’t _ quite register pain when she punched him in the shoulder, and when he pretended to flinch he earned a second. Though, one with less than half the force as the first.

“Wonder if this is what she meant in some way,” she muttered softly, “I thought it was some cryptic nonsense.”

“What do you mean?”

“Before Minfilia disappeared. She. She said something to me. Something she said to you. Ah. Not even the-” Honoura regretted the words the moment they left her lips. He got to his feet and backed off, phasing through obstacles to get away.

“That bit about ‘not even the most valiant heroes can stand alone’?  _ With me? _ N-no. It couldn’t be,” Ardbert ran his hands over his face, fidgeting, “There’s only one hero in the room, and it is not me.”

“Please don’t,” she pleaded,"I'm not sayin’ she was right but-"

“I’m just a shadow. Cursed to wander. Cursed to haunt you too with that, I guess.” Just as soon as he’d found contact, he withdrew it entirely. 

“Ardbert _wait_-” Too late. He’d faded out, vanished from her sight and from the Pendants, likely. Leaving her sitting there on the floor alone.

* * *

A frantic staccato rang out from the door, so sudden she almost toppled over rising to her feet. Her legs felt leaden, muscles quivering with exhaustion. Honoura pried the door barely an ilm, maybe two, arms as spent as the rest of her.

_ Well. I look like shite. _ Or the Exarch had some other pressing concerns causing that look on his face. It was plausible. Unlikely, but plausible.

“Ahem. Forgive the intrusion, but Minfilia--that is, Ryne and the others were asking after you. Is everything all right?” Ah. That explained it. Ryne.  _ This probably won't make her feel any better,  _ she realized, wiping her brow with a shaky hand.

“It's,” she hesitated. She had an opportunity to voice her pain, and suddenly that was the last thing she wanted to do. What would they do if they knew? They either wouldn't or couldn't stop what was already in motion. But she couldn't say  _ nothing _ .

“It's been a long day. I'm tired and there was.” She rubbed at a spot by her collarbone.

A soft 'ah' escaped the Exarch, arms crossed in thought, “That pain again? From the desert?" She nodded, slowly. 

“And did it pass?” A soft push for details. If she lied right now, she could almost hear the lecture from Y’shtola once she knocked on the door instead.

“Aye,” she answered, dutifully as a child.

Some of the tension in his shoulders slackened at that. “Thank goodness for that. I would not wish to see you suffer,” he frowned, lips pressed together into a thin line,“Though… I only know too well how much you  _ have _ suffered on our behalf.”

Too tired to hide much, her surprise registered in its entirety on her face. Failing entirely to calm anyone's nerves tonight about anything, clearly.

Through hooded gaze, the Exarch stared at her, his voice calm and direct, “Honoura, I have no right to impose upon you further. But can I ask you for one more thing?” She canted her head, listening.

“I ask that you survive this, no matter what. When the dust settles, you must return to your world. For the battles to come and the wars yet unwon,” he implored. Oh. There it was. Concern, real concern to be sure. Recognition she had basic needs. But underneath it the real motivator.  _ We need you for one purpose.  _ It all came back to that, didn't it? 

Save one world, go back to the other. Back to the ceruleum soaked trenches of the Ghimlyt Dark, pushing an ilm at a time through twisted wreckage and corpses to Garlemald. Face Zenos again, or more rightly, face Elidibus wearing his face. March under the colors of the Alliance, maybe they'd let her wear Maelstrom red again to cover up the blood. Walk through the gates of Emet-Selch’s latest empire. Win, presumably. At some point, a smile had crept on her face. She needed to smile here. It reassured people. 

She wanted to believe it worked when the Exarch made no mention of anything else being amiss. “The final Lightwarden is all that stands between us and victory. There is still much we must do to prepare,” a beleaguered sigh escaped, and for a moment the Exarch seemed his real age, “But for now, I will see if there is aught that may remedy the strange affliction which plagues you.” Crystalline hand grasped the door handle on his side of the entrance and gave her a smile of his own.

“I’ll not keep you from your rest any longer. Take as much time as you like.” With a relieving click, she turned her back to the door and slid to the floor. Head resting against the heavy wood and iron door, she sat there taking slow, deep breaths. 

She'd originally learned from a medic in Gyr Abania how to ward off panic and gods, if there was ever a time she couldn't afford to panic. But the breaths turned to gulps, the gulps to sobs. Eventually she sat there, alone, feverish and crying. Live, live to fight again, he said. They'd get her back on her feet, just for that. And nobody wanted her for anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First up, the WoL in this is a WoL iteration of an RP character. There's some major differences that are totally irrelevant to any of this. 90% of this idea is 'man, I wish there was more of Ardbert and the WoD commiserating on how difficult it is to even be repping for Hydaelyn sometimes'. Some of these will definitely be rewrites of cutscenes. Others I'm just going to make up.


	10. acknowledgement

The lamps had long burned out on their own when Ardbert found the courage to step through the door again. For the first time in a century he had to sidestep to miss someone. She'd curled up on her side, arm tucked underneath her head. Still in armor, tear streaks leaving clean lines down a dirty face. _ You did that. _ For the second time in the same night, he vanished from the Pendants. 

It was late now, really late; little more than Crystarium guards and a drunk or two having a last call at Glynard’s bar. Ardbert strode through the empty markets, past the aetheryte square and out into the Lakeland night. He wasn’t sure where he was going, only that he couldn’t bring himself to stay. 

Like he had before for countless lonely days before, he wandered. Past the crumbling alabaster stones of Ft. Jobb, past the calmly lapping waves of the Source. The stars failed to catch his eye; his mind fixated on two very conflicting thoughts. _ I hurt her. She reached for me. _And why did that matter so much? What could he even do? But why did it also feel so… nice. 

A fork in the road came up -- stay in Lakeland or continue to Amh Araeng. Scuffing his foot silently against the pale sediment, he chose the desert. He wanted the Crystal Tower to become nothing more than a needle in the sky. Where the sun rose over the ruddy hills and barren mineshafts. _ The dirt here that clung to her face back in the Pendants… _

He should have been there for the meeting with Minfilia. Him being a coward then is how he got here now, scowling at a peculiar bubbling formation in the Flood. The crystal refracted the cool glow of the stars now, a welcome if strange sight. Ardbert stood there for an awkward amount of time, waiting. For what? Minfilia was gone. He knew. She wouldn’t have lied about that; Honoura had a hearty distaste for lies as is. 

“Wouldn’t be here right now if you just told me what you meant back then,” he spit. _ You must give them hope. _What hope was there for him to give? All he’d helped do was cause a stalemate. A hundred years of solitude, a hundred years of suffering and toil and torment. She’d made the real efforts, big and small. Killing Lightwardens, but then so much more.

How she'd set a plate for him. Asking him for advice and listening, bright-eyed and alert. She'd learned how to glance his way surreptitiously in a crowd, to share secret opinions no one would guess the Warrior of Darkness held but _ Honoura _absolutely did. Little things, little signs that said he was there as much as the rest, that he was part of this… whatever it was, too. Ardbert treasured that, feeling part of a group, of a cause, of someone’s life again. He could almost assume this was his journey as much as hers.

“She doesn’t need me.” Turning on his heel, he felt himself dissipate, feet taking him where they felt pulled to go in absence of his mind setting the route. 

The mural hadn’t changed much in the weeks since they viewed it together in Rak’Tika. The darkness washed out the colors moreso -- the past felt even further behind him, that visceral memory he recounted. He kept walking, letting it pass through him, until the Greatwood’s boughs no longer sheltered him.

He was somewhere in the fields of Il Mheg when he halted. The sun was high, but as to how many times it's done that he couldn't be sure. Had he walked all of one night, or several? 

Ardbert laughed to himself because _ of course _ his feet would take him here. Where it all started, where it really started. When he thought she’d drowned and felt that twinge of fear, the worry that he’d be alone again. When he looked at her the first time and thought kindly of her.

Wait.

Shite.

“I’m a bloody fool,” he muttered aloud, eyes wide at the revelation,“A godsdamned bloody fool.” Flower petals floated through the air, dancing about while he paced, thoroughly unsettled. “Am I in love? I’m _ dead _. That doesn’t -- it doesn’t even work. Things’ll get fixed here, she’ll go home, and then what?” Where would that leave him? Sure there was… something. A thing. A connection. Her hand in his, like his time wasn’t a century past. But that wasn’t the same as going with her. She couldn’t stay. He couldn’t leave. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

Il Mheg’s cheery florals remained ignorant of his troubled deliberation, pink blossoms floating idly as free as he was grounded. In the back of his mind, he entertained the idea of coming back here with her. Before she left. The rest of him pointed out how ridiculous that sounded. But…  
  
He looked down at his hand.

“Suppose it’s a little late to ask the sensible questions, isn’t it?”

Looking around one more time, he began to walk again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First up, the WoL in this is a WoL iteration of an RP character. There's some major differences that are totally irrelevant to any of this. 90% of this idea is 'man, I wish there was more of Ardbert and the WoD commiserating on how difficult it is to even be repping for Hydaelyn sometimes'. Some of these will definitely be rewrites of cutscenes. Others I'm just going to make up.
> 
> Secondly, thank you everyone who's stuck with it. Things have been a mess lately; writing this felt a lot like rolling a boulder uphill. But somehow extra frustrating because I wanted to do it and it just wasn't gelling. I hope you're all staying safe, and anyone you care about is okay.


End file.
